THE minted members of One Direction dug deeper than the obligatory pint when they sorted Niall Horan's 18th birthday present last month.

Times are tough for most teenagers in Britain at the moment so gift expectations must be pretty low.

But not when you've got Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Zayn Malik chipping in to buy a lifesize waxwork of Barack Obama.

The Cheryl Cole waxwork must have been ruled out because of the melting dangers with too much physical contact.

Liam revealed: "Niall is obsessed with Barack Obama. He knows everything about him.

"We looked around for the waxwork for ages. It's a lifesize model and it's heavy.

"We had it made and delivered. We all chipped in for it. He sits on a bench in our flat. Niall loves it.

"It was a fair bit of money but I can't say as we don't want Niall to know."

Is that code for "We rang up and asked for it for free because we are famous?"

Niall — who launched the new One Direction Nokia phone with the rest of the band at a Carphone Warehouse store in central London on Wednesday — said: "It's such a good present, I love Obama. Who knows, maybe next year I'll get Michelle too."

Something doesn't sound quite right about that, Junior.

The lads — pictured above with Bizarre girl Lia — share a flat and it seems like they could do with a few more trinkets to decorate the place. Management emptied the posh north London gaff of any valuables so they wouldn't be broken and charged for them later on.

Harry said: "We've made the place a bit more blokey. They took out a few bits including the massive chandeliers. They said they couldn't trust us in there with all of it. Don't blame them really."

And so it means the flatmates have been living more like squatters.

Louis said: "It took me ages to get bedding. All I had for a while was a bed, sofa, sleeping bag and a BlackBerry charger.

"My mum got some for me in the end."

Those Spider-Man sheets will go down a storm with all the One Direction groupies...

Source: The Sun